Stress is when you're 29 years old, playing for Rochdale, with an expiring contract and a mortgage to pay.
You know I don't think there will ever be a time when the English player is not respected, and feared, across the world of football. The English footballer is very brave and strong and committed and there is always enough high-class players in his team to cause concern in any opponent. It is a national characteristic.
I don't blame individuals, Elton, I blame myself
He lived in a fantasy world. There was not a day when he didn't add some Mickey Mouse story about a club that wanted him. First of all, he came in and told me that Arsenal wanted to buy him, then the next week it was Manchester Utd, then the next week it was Real Madrid. He made it clear that he did not want to be at the club so, in the end, there was only one thing I could do - send him to Wigan.
Portsmouth are at Huddersfield, which is always away
If you want to fight hell and the power of darkness that seek to destroy the hearts of our daughters, I know a type of spiritual warfare that creates value in a daughter's spirit. It is called "Taking your Daughter out for tea" or "Going to Her Soccer Game", and it works in direct opposition to the agenda of hell and darkness that wants to destroy their lives.
I've seen them on television on a Sunday morning most days of the week.
Even all the top players going to Europe to play helps soccer in America, as do all the MLS players like Beckham and all that, they're trying to promote it. At the end of the day it's about getting the younger generation interested at an early age so most of them will move on and play.
Playing in Italy was like being in a foreign country.
Polls are now even more meaningless than ever... there was the case of Ronnie O'Brien, the young footballer who incredibly found himself at Juventus, and even more incredibly found himself in the running to win an internet poll of the great club's greatest ever player. The curse ironically struck O'Brien a second time when he was at one point leading Time magazine's list of the Greatest People Of The 20th Century. The error in the polling was soon rectified and O'Brien, happily, is leading a highly successful career playing pro-football with FC Dallas in the American soccer league.
Billy Gilbert hit a kamikaze back pass which Justin Fashinu pounced on like a black Frank Bruno
In many ways, my job in soccer was like my job in basketball now. I had to protect the goal. That was the name of the game, not letting the other team score.
Only if there's an outbreak of the bubonic plague.
I love soccer. That's all I ever watch. I'll watch it all day if I can. But I'm too bloody old to play now.
While American football is very structured and linear and static, where everyone lines up and there's a burst and it happens, soccer is like the cosmos. It's like constellations. It's bodies moving in space. It's a very spherical game. You can move in any direction, at any time.
I was a kid who got picked on in school and got beat up by popular, athletic soccer-type people.
Most of the time the concept of globalization ends up sounding unnecessarily abstruse - even the name itself sounds clunky and highfalutin. And people discuss it in a way that makes it seem so impersonal. But globalization really is a concrete, fundamental fact in everybody's lives, and you really see that come to life in soccer stadiums.
Sometimes I'd like to have a conversation with a friend in a restaurant without feeling I'm being watched. At this rate I will have to go on holiday to Greenland. But maybe the Eskimos would know me.
I was a good student, I was good at soccer, I was vice president of the student council, I was a pretty girl.
You look at boxing being an international, world-famous sport, right up there next with soccer, and there's only two fighters the people want to see fight. Two little fellows, Manny Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather.
Kicked wide of the goal with such precision
In my school, people liked the gym teachers because they were the football or soccer coaches. But look, if they're cool, they get respect.
Iain Dowie famously coined the phrase 'bouncebackability' to describe Crystal Palace's ability to come from behind. But this is a typical manager's idea, so optimistic. What fans are interested in is 'throwawayability': which teams toss away hard-earned leads? Now we know that 'throwawayability' exists because we proved last season that 'bouncebackability' exists (although, hilariously, Palace don't have it) and 'throw-awayability' is the flip side of it.
When Ronaldo gave that little wink everyone interpreted it that he had got his team-mate sent off. You felt then that he would become a much criticised figure. But that's not really what happened. So for him to overcome all of that and emerge as one of the players of the season is quite a remarkable achievement. He is a phenomenal talent. He has tremendous pace, he goes past players and he has added the ability to shoot. He can also pick out team-mates. There is not a lot he cannot do now. I believe his game has improved immeasurably over the past couple of seasons.
OK, the wonderful thing about soccer is, a football is a perfectly round object, and it doesn't make mistakes. The player using it makes mistakes. And the more you use it, the less mistakes you make.
